Q: Why did you decide to update America’s Political
Dynasties, and what are some of the most noteworthy changes in this edition?

A: This book was first out 50 years ago, and I was thinking
about that last year. I thought, 2016 may be a significant year in the history
of American political dynasties. We may even have a context between a Bush and
a Clinton, and it would be fun to revise it. The Brookings Press liked the
idea.

I thought it wasn’t going to amount to very much work. When
you reach your 80s, you’re not looking for major exercise! The idea was that I
would put in what happened in the last 50 years, and with the exception of the
Kennedys, the answer would be, not much.

[But] I recognized that that wouldn’t make a
serious…book—and a lot had happened. Take the Adamses. They hadn’t been in
politics for 150 years. They may not have been around, but historians studying
them had.

One of the most interesting changes in the book is that
Abigail Adams turned out to have been a great businesswoman. John went off to
France to represent the country, and Abigail had to run the farm. It wasn’t
easy because all the men were off at war.

She went into trade. John, in France, when he knew a
friend like Lafayette was going to be in the U.S., would ask, Do you mind
bringing scarves to Abigail? She would sell them. She wrote: John, that’s
retail—we should be in wholesale…if we lose two of three ships, we would still
make a profit. Once they did it that way, she could adjust to the market.

John Adams never worked for anybody [after that point] but the U.S.
government—that was not a lot of money. What she made kept the family solvent.
This was not in the first edition, but it is in this edition.

Historians have been at work, but other things clearly
had happened. With the Roosevelts, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor
Roosevelt had five children. I had interviewed most of them 50 years ago, and I
gave them passing grades.

Fifty years later, they don’t get passing grades...Elliott Roosevelt had to testify before an investigative
committee. Franklin Jr. [was working for] Trujillo. It had to be rewritten.

The purpose of the book had changed too. When I wrote the
book 50 years ago, I stumbled on the fact that in addition to the Adamses [and
other prominent families], there were some I’d never heard of, like the
Frelinghuysens and the Muhlenbergs.

The first edition 50 years ago was really to tell Americans,
who had very little exposure to the story, [about it]. It wasn’t the story of
the United States. Dynastic families accounted for 6 percent elected to the
U.S. Congress. But it was interesting. That was really all I was doing.

The second time around, dynasties had become controversial
because of the Clintons and the Bushes. I was trying to make the point that
dynasties will always be with us. The point was, while dynasties will always be
with us, it’s not always the same dynasties. Dynasties are born, and dynasties
die. That’s the story I set out to tell in the second edition…

The death of dynasties is really interesting. The Adamses
had three great generations and then stopped. Why? They were rather unpleasant
people. After a while, Americans didn’t want to elect these people. What we
expected of politicians had changed.

It’s interesting—the Livingstons, who were very rich, after
a while didn’t want to appeal to the riffraff, the populace. In a sense, the
Adamses were rejected by the populace, and the Livingstons rejected the
populace.

Q: You write, “A nice irony is that while the Clintons are
not a dynasty but would like to be one, the Bushes are a dynasty but deny that
they are one.” What accounts for their attitudes about dynasties?

A: When I set out to write the 2016 version, I had to expand
the book by two families. The fact is, the Clintons didn’t fit my rigid
definition [but I included them]…With the Bush family, what could you possibly
say that hadn’t already been said? There were two Bush presidents, and so much
had been written on them.

I had to think of new angles. One was their founding father,
Prescott Bush. In the first [edition], the Bushes didn’t rate [as a dynasty].
As I retold the story of the Bushes, all of them lost elections before they won
one. This showed something of their fortitude. It was unusual for a family
doing well in oil, or owning a baseball team—they didn’t have to keep [trying].

With the Clintons and the Bushes, the book was aimed to the
2016 election. I couldn’t talk about the election; the book was put to bed six
months ago.

What to do with the Clintons? They’re not a dynasty, they’re
husband and wife. They’ll become a dynasty if their daughter or granddaughter
gets elected! I’m rethinking the story of Bill and Hillary—while it was not a
dynasty, it was a partnership. They met at Yale Law School—that’s unique in
American politics.

Q: You describe the “curse of the presidential dynasty,” the
inability, so far, of dynastic families to have more than two presidents. Do
you think it will be broken?

A: Certainly at this moment, Jeb Bush isn’t doing very well.
You can’t count him out, because he’s still in. What’s so interesting about the
Bushes is that they have another generation coming up behind them. Jeb’s son is
an elected officer in Texas, and his mother is Mexican-American. It’s
conceivable the first Hispanic American president will be named Bush. The story
goes on.

Undoubtedly, if there’s to be a 2017 edition coming out,
we’re going to have to take into account whether we have the first woman
president, or the first three-president dynasty. It’s historic. Maybe we’ll
have neither. I may be connected to dynasties longer than I thought when I
first had the idea when I was in the Army!

Q: You mentioned the Kennedys. What do you see looking ahead
for the Kennedy family’s younger generations?

A: There was a brief moment where there wasn’t a Kennedy in
Congress. People started to write them off. That was a foolish thing to do with
the Kennedys. They have politics in their DNA, and there are so many of them.
Now there’s the sixth Kennedy in Congress.

It’s remarkable; the first one was elected in 1947. Even
there, the fifth or sixth would not have been in Congress if Ethel and Bobby
hadn’t had 11 children. There is a Kennedy in Congress now, and his press
clippings are pretty darn good. He seems relatively modest by Kennedy
standards. There will be Kennedys after him…

Q: Why do you think some of these dynasties remain famous
while others become more obscure?

A: It almost divides between presidential dynasties and
non-presidential dynasties. Ones that get a president get written up in our
history books. It’s ironic—the Harrisons produced two presidents. They weren’t
great presidents. They wouldn’t have been noticed at all [as a family] without
the presidents.

By and large, dynasties have a state base. They’re well
respected where they come from. If they cross a border, there’s more ambition
than can be held in one state. An example is the Kennedys. There were too many
ambitious Kennedys than could fit within Massachusetts.

One of the most fascinating families in the book is the
Washburns. They started in Maine. Their father was a bankrupt shopkeeper. There
were four sons elected to Congress from four different states, three serving at
the same time. It’s so unique.

The Frelinghuysens—there were six in Congress, all from New
Jersey, from the same plot of land where the first one landed… The current one,
Rodney, is probably the most important of any Frelinghuysen. He’s been there
long enough now that he’s the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee
on Pentagon spending.

That too can be something that comes of a dynastic
impulse—if you stay long enough, over time, you can become powerful. The answer
in part is that their ambitions were modest, and never exceeded their own
talent. They never got swelled heads [as opposed to] the children of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt.

A great name may be worth one step up on the political
ladder. If your father’s in Congress, you may win [a seat on the] city council.
If your father’s the president, you may get to the House of Representatives.

In the case of FDR’s sons, one was a House member from
California and one from New York. They were both safe Democratic seats. In each
case, when they sought higher office, both were defeated. Their advantage was [useful]
for one election, and then they were on their own. That’s the dynastic rule of
thumb.

About Me

Author, THE PRESIDENT AND ME: GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE MAGIC HAT, new children's book (Schiffer, 2016). Co-author, with Marvin Kalb, of HAUNTING LEGACY: VIETNAM AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY FROM FORD TO OBAMA (Brookings Institution Press, 2011).